News

Fighters for the all-women YPJ militia in northern Syria say they are fighting “a revolution of woman.”

Hundreds of Kurds gathered in a Turkish border town on Tuesday for the funerals of four women killed fighting the Islamic State (I.S.) group, while across the border a Kurdish female militia is playing a leading role in defending Kobani.

Reuters has reported the four coffins that were lowered into the ground in the town of Suruc contained the bodies of fighters from the Kurdish Women's Protection Units (YPJ) – the female brigade of the leftist YPG militia.

“We will avenge … those women who were sold as slaves in the markets of the ISIS (I.S.),” the YPJ said in a statement last Wednesday.

WLUML Board member, Karima Bennoune has been announced as the 2014 Dayton Literature Peace Prize Nonfiction winner, for her book Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism.

With Hassan Rouhani promising a more moderate stance in Iran, she wanted to enter the stadium alongside male fans, hoping that the Islamic republic's ban on women attending big sporting events would finally be over.

On the 20th anniversary of the fundamentalist assassination of Algerian educator Salah Chouaki, Karima Bennoune, WLUML board member, translates his warning - so relevant today - about the need to be uncompromising in the battle against the very ideology that motivated his murder.

We as individual human rights activists, as well as the human rights community as a whole greatly miss Sunila today. As we struggle to grapple with myriads of contemporary challenges we miss her indomitable character, and energy. As we gather today to celebrate her life and work since she left us so suddenly – exactly an year ago, her memories still remain fresh in my mind. As I stated in my speech made in the first South Asian Sunila memorial lecture held in Dhaka organised last year by Sangat the South Asian Feminist, we will continue to remain in conversation with you Sunila.

Join notable free-thinkers, atheists and secularists from around the world for a weekend of discussions and debates on the religious-Right, its attacks on civil rights and freedoms, and the role of secularism for 21st century humanity. The exciting two-day conference will discuss the Arab Spring, Sharia and religious laws, the limits of religion’s role in society, free expression, honour killings, apostasy and blasphemy laws, faith schools, women’s rights, secular values and much more.

Shirkat Gah - Women’s Resource Centre, the Institute for Women’s Empowerment (IWE),and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) have today announced the launch of a new feminist leadership web portal as part of their Women’s Empowerment and Leadership Development for Democratisation (WELDD) programme. The portal will act as a virtual pathway to feminist activists, organisations, and dreamers of a gender -just and egalitarian world. The portal is a space to share useful resources, a forum for sharing experiences and holding discussions and debates about how to nurture feminist leadership that is transformative and sustainable. WELDD is committed to Global South knowledge production, and will hold a space for theoretical/conceptual explorations emerging from Muslim majority contexts in Arabic, Bahasa, English, French and Urdu.